


The Waters of Nun

by Garrick



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Ancient Egyptian Deities, Archaeology, Con Artists, Eventual Romance, F/M, Indiana Jones References, Inspired by The Mummy(1999), Post-World War I, Pre-World War II, Ramsay is His Own Warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-02-09 22:25:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18647299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garrick/pseuds/Garrick
Summary: An English school teacher travels to Egypt to search for her Archaeologist brother who went missing looking for a mythical temple.She gains the help of an American conman and an Anglo-Irish adventurer with a dark past after saving the latter from certain death.What the trio are unaware of is that on top of treasure hunters and Nazis they must also contend with a shadowy organisation that does not want the truth of the disappearance or of the temple to be revealed.





	1. Prologue

_**"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.** _ **..** _**" - Genesis** _

 

** 1915 – Somewhere over the sands of Egypt **

“We should try to push ahead of it and make a hard turn back when we can, Milord,” Will shouts loudly as the biplane chugs and stutters through the air. “There’s no way we’ll make it back to the strip else.”

Sir Waymar shakes his head coolly, calmly, if any of this is worrying him he doesn’t let it show. His voice can barely be heard over the plane or over what’s chasing them. “We’re at almost no fuel, the reserves are shot up and we’ve got stalling in the engine. We’re not making it back to the strip.”

Will’s stomach falls as the plane shudders again. Like something in a factory does. Three years in the skies and he’s never had anything like it before.

Sir Waymar Royce gives the stick a shake and the whole vehicle sways from side to side slightly until the engine settles down again. Will takes the opportunity to prop himself up a little, his hands almost burning against the heat of the plane’s metal as he tries to take a better look at the sight behind them and on the desert floor; a large whirlwind of sand glides along like a dark wall or coming tide, eclipsing the horizon behind them both. The plane can barely outrun its shadow.

The wind the cyclone of sand stirs rocks the plane and Will curses colourfully. It is just his luck to be caught up in something like this, just his luck to get a lordling pilot barely out of the academy, just his luck to take Turkish small arms fire from the ground as they made their strafe near the Canal.

“We’re not going to outrun it,” he says as the churning darkness behind them writhes and claws out towards them, almost like an outstretched hand.

“Is that unusual?”  Royce yells.

“Never saw one like it! Never that big! Never that fast! Never this far north!” _It is the truth,_ Will thinks as he scours his mind for memories of sandstorms and deserts, _everything but the last,_ he doesn’t know how far north they are. He doesn’t know where they are. All he knows is that the darkness will soon take them if they can’t land soon.

The engine shudders and Will feels the vibrations in his legs. It takes everything in him not to piss himself in his chair as the plane dips slightly against the wind, against even its own hard slog trying to stay in the air. The tail gun of the plane swings suddenly in the wind and meets him in the face; he can already feel warm blood pour from his nose.

He tries to push the gun out of his way but the winds are too strong, the storm is too close. With one desperate move, he hooks an arm around the weapon and lifts until something gives and a bolt loosens. The gun rocks violently in its holding just for a moment or two before it flies off, empty and useless.

The wind catches the weapon and pulls it to the side in the air. The instrument of war meaning nothing to the elements it almost seems to float for a while before plummeting in an arch to the ground. Will’s eyes blur from pain but follow the piece on its descent all the same, follow until something else has his attention. Something that he has to take his goggles off and risk the blinding sands to confirm he sees.

Something is in the sands on the ground _, tents maybe?_

 _No_.

Something reveals itself in the churning of the ground. Something pokes out from the sands like the sun-bleached bones of some unfortunate desert wanderer, partially crumbled pylons and statues and half-walls that all seem to have been toppled and worn by the ages.

“There! Down there-” Will tries to shout, but the sands are too thick and too fast, his mouth is almost filled with it and blood when he talks. The entire plane darkens with the shadow of the great monolith behind them encroaching closer and closer.

He spits as much of it out as he can and turns, reaching dangerously over and pressing his fingers hard into Royce’s shoulder. “Down there! On the right! On the right!” he shouts again raspily, dryly, as if water was only a myth.

The pilot stirs and there is a slight tilt of the plane to give him a better look at the sight below and across from them. The white stone shimmers in the sun, glinting like a beacon even in the massing storm, even with the encroaching darkness.

Will scans the horizon and sees nothing else bar the sand wall and the endless ocean of desert in front of them, not even a cloud dots the skies. “There’s nowhere else,” he bellows, forgetting his rank, forgetting his station. The other man grumbles with unease at the situation and shakes his head for a moment, then seeing no other option the aeroplane makes a sharp turn and descent.

The fixtures of the plane rattle and to both of the men’s unease, crack, as they run for around twenty seconds along the storm’s edge. It’s a long chance really, it’s too far away to make it in time and before long the sunshine vanishes and they are almost entirely engulfed in darkness as the sand grabs at and then consumes them.

The storm is all that exists. Nothing but the storm and them and the plane. The sand batters the men and the plane both like thick hail. There is nothing but blackness and the coarse grind of hot dirt and rock all around them.  All bearings are gone. They cannot tell how high they are. They cannot tell how far away the ruins are.

The plane itself cannot even be heard over the sound of the elements, though they both feel the wind command it, pulling and pushing it this way and that like a child with a ragdoll. Will braces himself for the inevitable crash, but he cannot see what Royce does, he cannot even see his own body in the thick dust.

The plane moves again and something loud happens as everything suddenly feels lighter and the angle of their descent suddenly changes. _We’re not going to land it,_ he thinks _, There’s no way we’re going to land it._

The gunner reaches out as much as he can against the pressure of the winds, he almost feels them drag him out of his seat. His fingers outstretch for something which is no longer there: The second wing of the biplane.

Will panics at its non-existence. He curses His Majesty’s Royal Flying Corps of Egypt for having planes this old, he curses the Turks for having gotten them into this mess, he curses himself for ever enlisting.

The plane shifts again and with it moves the centre of gravity. Like a salmon, the thing dips and then rises again for a few short moments until it stops and there is only the glide, only the glide and the battering of the winds. Will lifts his stomach out of his throat and only then notices that the vibrations aren’t even there in his legs any more and that can only mean one thing. Complete engine failure.

The plane glides and almost seems to shiver in the wind before there’s a sudden jolt, like when a rookie pilot clips the runway on his ascent. It’s jerking and Will almost feels like his arms are going to snap off from the bracing he’s doing. Then there is another. And another until the sensation of being in the air is gone and the plain skids along the dunes.

Though the sand slows and softens the biplane’s landing, the skid only comes to an end as the plane hits something hard and flips over, like a bug on its back. Will can only just dip his head in time to prevent losing it. The skidding continues along and sparks fly from the loud scrape of metal on stone until there is finally a very slow halt.

Will breaths. Breaths as deeply as he can to make sure his lungs are still in his chest. He relaxes his sore arms and pats himself over, looking for holes or broken bones but finds nothing.

The storm still rages outside the plane and Will sighs in relief at his continued existence. His head and back are hunched and bent to a disgustingly uncomfortable position and there is a mixture of dry dust and new warm wetness all over him but he has survived.

“Royce?” he shouts into his enclosed space but then corrects himself instantly. “Sir?” There is no answer.

He waits for a few seconds and brushes his bleeding face. The new wetness travels up, or rather down his legs and towards his chest and he unbuckles himself and moves to avoid it.

There’s a gap between the bay and the ground, just big enough for him to make his way through if he crawls down on his belly. There is an urgency to his movements, however sluggish they are. Once out he feels drunk against the hard stone beneath them, the winds blast him aggressively against the plane and he tries to make his way the small distance down to the pilot’s chair.

In his sand blindness, he cannot really see. The rattling of the plane’s thin metal structure is the only thing to guide him down until he’s there and can put his hands in on the body, but there is no movement.

“Sir!” he shouts but the shout is lost on the wind. He can barely see the outline of the body he touches, it’s all a rush, a hot, dry rush to get him out before the sands bury him, get him out and get him somewhere, anywhere.

The straps and ties unclip and unfasten and Royce’s body drops limply from the seat and onto the hard rock. It takes all of Will’s strength to lift him and try to make his way blindly across hardness of the stone floor.

 _Keep walking,_ he tells himself, _keep walking._ _You’ll get to the edge eventually. Get to the edge and then to a crevice or a door. Somewhere you can hold out for the night._

The young man keeps walking. He keeps walking until he can barely walk anymore, the stone seems to go on for an eternity. He keeps walking and walking and his figure begins to bend and hunch over with the stress of his load and the agony of his steps until finally, he falls.

He expects stone to meet him as he falls but there is nothing, nothing for less than a second but air and then a sudden scorching heat of sand as both of their haggard figures tumble down and into something. They slide down the dune quickly and collapse through a wall, brittle and aged by the sands. Their journey finally ends with a pair of hard thuds against the cold, dark of stone.

It takes him a few seconds, but he gets his bearings again and breaths. He supposes that it would have been just like him to slip and die on a rock after surviving what he has just survived.

Near him, Royce grumbles and straightens himself - Alive after all. The two of them catch their breath heavily and right themselves. It’s cold in the room and pitch black. They can only see each other through a sliver of murky light that beams down where the sands continue to pour in steadily.

“Why is it I smell like piss?” the lordling asks as he straightens himself up, his voice echoes in the darkness of the cavern. His movements are slow and jagged like he’s badly hurt something. He makes to lift himself but winces as he tries to put any pressure on his arm.

Will unwraps the scarf around his neck and takes off his goggles. His matted hair is as dusty as a tomb as are his clothes and his skin. Under his goggles, the skin is pink as a virgin’s blush. “I think that’s me, Sir.” He says.

“Oh.” Royce presses himself up against a wall with his good arm. He makes no cruel remark, no joke, no sly put-down, it’s not characteristic of him at all, though Will supposes something like this could change someone.

The officer takes off his own goggles and his flying hat and blinks the dust out of his cool green eyes. Styled and slick hair is revealed almost without a strand out of place. “I don’t suppose you managed to grab the signal flare?”

Will’s face scrunches, incredulous. “No, Sir.” He’s still breathless as he talks, “I did have my hands full at the time.”

Sir Waymar surveys their surroundings as much as he can. He hobbles over to the entrance where the sands seem to encroach ever inwards, tumbling grain against grain like a filling hourglass. He gives it a careful glance and then smiles wryly. “That was some damn fine flying, wasn’t it?”

Incredulity turns into utter disbelief and Will’s countenance is so twisted that Waymar thinks he is upset or shamed. “No matter about the flare, old boy, I’m sure a signal fire will do just as well when this blasted storm abates.” He stretches out his back and the fingers on his good hand toy with his belt and then with his other wrist. He winces again under the lightest pressure. Sprained maybe, a miracle it  wasn’t torn off.

The man’s eyes watch the sands for a moment but he’s not really paying attention to it. Instead, the movements of his mind seem almost evident on his face as he traces the field manual on what to do when something like this happens.

Eventually, the lord has a plan.

“Could you possibly rustle us up a small fire? Or a torch maybe? It would be a tremendous aid. I would help but…” he motions lazily with his balled fist with the final half sentence.

Will turns away and gets to work, wordless. There is no use arguing. Even if a fire could smoke them out of their own hide-out, even if it could burn the place to the ground before the storm settled. He gathers his scarf, some brambles by the entrance and some broken stone and gets to work as Royce watches. It’s not long before there is a dazzling flame and the area immediately around them illuminates and Will studies the tiled floors and walls and wonders what the little pictures and etchings could possibly mean. Only now that there is light can he truly appreciate the size of the structure they are in, its scale and its immense, haunting beauty.

Pillars dot along the middle of the cavernous hall. Clear, dark stone that seems as fresh as if it was carved yesterday. Will wonders if anyone has been here in a thousand years. Likely not, he supposes. He wonders whether riches are lying deep within or whether he could be named as its discoverer, then he remembers who he is, where he’s from, what class he belongs to and the dreams die as quickly as they had come.

He cautiously steps a little closer to one of the pillars and traces the stonework with his hand. It’s cold. Impossibly cold. Like touching a lamppost in the depths of winter. The skin of his palm comes away covered in frost and condensation and that makes him uneasy. He wants to say something: that this is impossible, that they should leave, that they should brave the storm but  his voice abandons him. _A trick of the weather. Something with the stone maybe._

The lordling is with him soon enough and snatches the torch from his hand. Like he’s off for a morning strolls he begins to walk further into the ruins. Will does not follow. Something holds him back, something that he cannot quite voice.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” the officer bellows in the darkness without turning. The shout echoes in the ancient halls, probably the first sound that the walls have heard in millennia. Will holds still for a few seconds and then reluctantly trails behind, guarded of being alone.

The two move through the room, their flame cutting through the darkness. Before long they have made there way all the way across and come to an archway made of the same sort of stone as the pillars. It leads to another room, much like the first but colder. So cold. Their feet take them several hundred yards more before Royce breaks the silence and points. Something has his attention.

“My god. It’s beautiful.” He says and motions with the torch as if trying to cast the appropriate light.

It takes Will’s eyes a moment to adjust, to truly appreciate it. A pedestal, five times larger than any man, and on it gold, something golden and sparkling in the low firelight. Royce gives his subordinate a smile and he already knows what he wants him to do. “I would,” he says, “but…” then motions to his hand.

 _What was stopping you before the crash?_ He wants to say but knows that it isn’t worth it.

The pedestal isn’t cold like the pillars. Its stonework isn’t as bright, isn’t as new looking. There are small cracks in the stone where Will presses his feet, where he can move upwards with only small risk in the dim light.

He’s 30 feet up when the light dims further…

He’s 40 feet up when a chill wind rocks through the cavern with an echo and the light finally gutters out…

The lordling calls out suddenly, “What was that?” Will hears uncertainty in the challenge. He stops climbing; he listens; he watches. “Will?”

The ruin answers him: the small flush of mysterious icy wind in the depths, the darkness which seems unending, and the far off creep of stone upon stone.

What comes next makes no sound.

Will sees movement from the corner of his eye between the pillars, Pale things. Shapes.

He turns his head and glimpses warily at a white shadow in the darkness. Then as soon as he thinks he can make it out it is gone again.

Will opens his mouth to call something down to his officer, a warning maybe, but the words seem to freeze in his throat. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the crash had left him without his senses, maybe it was the fall, some trick of the light might be reflecting off of the pillars or off of the tiled walls and floors.

“Will?” Sir Waymar called up. “Do you have it?” He turns impatiently in a slow circle, looking quite suspicious in the darkness, his hand goes to his waistband and the holster. “Will?!”

 _He must have seen them too,_ Will thinks, _just like I did_. _Unless we’re both wrong. Unless it’s nothing._ He makes to answer again but still cannot bring himself to make a sound. He notices that he isn’t even breathing anymore, that his chest refuses to rise or fall for the fear of that small movement making him out.

“Answer me! Why is it so cold?” _It is cold,_ _W_ ill thinks as he shivers.  He clings tighter to the stone, as though it is the only thing keeping him on this plane of existence.

Will watches the silhouette of Royce move in the darkness as his eyes adjust to the lighting. A pale shadow emerges slowly from the black by the pillars and it stands in front of Royce. Its form is large and yet gaunt, its skin the same pale colour as milk.

He hears Sir Waymar take a breath. A sudden one. He unclips his sidearm from his holster with his good arm and raises it in the darkness.

“Come no farther,” the lordling warns. His voice cracks and all of his confidence is gone, all of his station is gone. The only thing left is the boy and his gun.

The shadow does not obey the command and that unnerves Royce further. Its feet slide forward slowly and do not make a sound as they connect with the floor. It has something in its hand, something bright and curved like some foreign blade, its dimensions were fantastic, it almost seemed to disappear as it swished the weapon through the air.

Sir Waymar stands, or at least tries to. “I said stop!” He lifts the gun slightly higher so that it points directly at the creature. His hands tremble from the weight of it, or perhaps from the bitter cold. Will doesn’t know whether Royce meant to fire at that point but the shot rings out. Then another. And another until the revolver clicks empty.

The thing is halted. Smoky ruins seem to bubble in its chest where the firearm had struck but its face is unmoved as the bubbling subsides. Its bright blue eyes close and then open again, fixing on Royce’s weapon. Something close to a cruel smile hits the place where lips should be and two more of them appear; two pale, glowing shadows.

The revolver cracks open and the spent shells fall to the floor with a clatter. Royce desperately tries to reload with his broken hand but he isn’t quick enough. The creatures walk forward and there are flashes. Quick and sudden thrusts and slashes and then there is darkness again. Pitch blackness. Will has closed his eyes. He cannot even bring himself to look after the first spray of blood.

When his arms weaken and he finds the courage to look again, a long time has passed.

Muscles aching and cramping more than they ever have before, fingers so numb that he is scarcely sure they are still there, he climbs down.

Royce’s body lies facedown on the floor. Dead. The arm with the broken hand is sliced and outflung like he had attempted to block a strike. It is not within reach of the rest of his body.

The thick leather jacket has been slashed in a dozen places. Great long slashes that make the corpse look like it belongs in a butcher’s window.

His movements are quick but his hands shake as he tries to find the dog-tags around Royce’s neck. He needs something of him to take back if he’s ever found. He has to hurry. Hurry in case they came back again. Whatever the hell they are.

It isn’t long before he can feel the metal which clings stubborn and frozen to Royce’s dead skin. Will tries to yank the dog tags off but he hesitates as he hears the rip of flesh coming away with it. He kneels down and gets closer, tries to change the angle until the metal finally comes away in his grasp.

The young man breaths a relieved sigh and tries to right himself when he notices movement again. Not a movement from the pillars, not any pale stranger ready to deal death. The body moves. Beyond all possibility, Royces’s body moves.

 _He’s not dead. Oh my god he’s not dead,_ Will thinks and there is a strange rattling sound from the officer, his face pushed against the floor. He tries to turn him, slowly to let him breathe, the blood underneath them splashing slightly as he does so. “Sir?” he whispers quietly as he sees Royce’s face.

The face is ruined. As slashed as the man’s chest and back. The jaw of it moves slowly like he’s testing the space the tongue and the teeth have in his mouth. There is barely any sound, no breathing, no scream of pain, the only thing is a deep rattle from somewhere in the throat.

Eyes open. Blue eyes, deeper than any ocean. They glow. They see.

They see Will.

 


	2. Tyrion - I

_**"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul..." - Genesis  
** _

 

**1936 - Somewhere outside Alexandria**

 

“I’ve got something!” A voice rings out through a tarp covering, a crack between the two buildings opens up and a well dressed man – too well dressed for doing what he is doing, his pieced suit is marked with the dryness of mud and dust – emerges with something solid in his filthy hands. “I can’t believe I’ve actually found something.”

Tyrion cups his hands out ready to receive the piece, his eyes twinkle with awe and astonishment like it is made of emerald rather than stone.

“Let me see.” He says in excitement, the colonial accent coming through with it all. Once it is fully in his grasp he raises it slightly to the sun. “My god… It’s damned near perfect.”

 _The important part is the rush_ , he thinks, that _sudden spike in_ _which they are given the first taste of their desire._

His stunted arms wrap around the piece delicately, almost as gently as one would carry a baby. The newcomer follows him, closely, impatiently. He can feel the presence of Bronn lingering now by the site entrance.

He lays the find out on their table and grabs a brush from the work bag; the newbie sits at the table’s edge with hands folded and shaking slightly in a silent prayer. Tyrion swipes with the brush delicately and pushes the dirt and the grime away slowly, impossibly slowly, until marks appear.

“Please tell me it’s old.” The man by his side hums. “Old or valuable, I’d be happy with either.”

Marks become shapes and with Tyrion’s ministration shapes eventually become glyphs. The jar is cream in colour once he has removed most of the dirt. Cream and black with a lid that bears the falcon head of Horus himself. It’s almost without any sign of wear, like the ancient world has opened up into the new through this one object.

Tyrion braces himself and studies the carvings. “Burial related. It’s late age probably - Maybe Macedonian era. The gaps between the buildings have kept it in perfect condition.” He places the piece carefully on the table and places his hand on the shoulder of their new companion. “We might really be getting close.”

Young eyes glisten in response, full of incorruptible and indomitable joy and anticipation. It’s everything the young man has spoke about since they found him… everything he says he has wanted from his trip. “Do you really think so?” he asks cautiously, there’s a slight hesitation to the way he speaks, like it is all too good to be true.

Tyrion looks over the boy’s shoulder and to Bronn. He hesitates for a moment and the boy’s face begins to change. Bronn nods and signals that it is time.

The dwarf lets his hands slide away from the young man, he’s forgotten his name, there have been too many of his type in this job recently and they’ve all begun to mesh into one. _James maybe?_

“I know so.” He utters the words with utter conviction, so much so that he is almost able to convince himself. He smiles and as if to prove his point he unfurls some scrolls full of glyphs, a small map or two of the local area. “Somewhere in here we’ll find the tomb of Alexander. We are all going to be legends. Princes of the world. Our names are going to be imprinted in the stars.”

They celebrate their find with a few beers, the stronger Belgian type, just enough to get the tongues wagging and to allow things to build before the next part.

“You see, I’ve never much amounted to anything really, I’m afraid to say.” ‘James’ explains after the second bottle is done. “Until now that is.” His face beams with the pride of someone not often prideful. “I can’t wait to tell my father, he’s a Viscount.”

After the third drink James is eager to get back to digging, his movement is slightly slower and slightly unsure as he walks over to the tarp. He’s half-way through when he stops. There are voices beyond, the sound of crashing things.

“Someone is here.” He whispers behind himself and stumbles back into the loosely assembled shack, the morning sun cuts through the dim light and the noises outside cut through the silence.

Bronn moves then, catlike, to the wall. He peers through the gaps where the sun enters. “Three of them. Guns. They’ve got bloody guns.”

Tyrion hobbles over and they’re almost near by the time he gets a clear look. Three Arabs approach through the dig-site, one immaculately dressed with a dark suit and red fez, flanked by two younger, bigger men with fatigues and rifles.

The dwarf turns to his companions and gives them a stern, serious look. “Whatever happens, don’t make any sudden movements. Do exactly as I say and we’ll all get through this.” He studies the youngest man’s face for a moment, the look of unease soaks him like sweat, but after a short moment he nods gently.

Tyrion  watches. Watches and waits until the three men finally enter the shanty. Guns are raised and loaded, the men carrying them reek of agitation and doubt, like they’ve never done this before. The well dressed man between them pulls the tarp from the entrance and the bright morning light crashes in like an unwelcome guest.

“As _-_ Salaam _-_ Alaikum, friends.” Tyrion says nervously. “What brings you out here?”

The man between them studies the strange collection of men before him, briefly, as if they were unworthy of a second glance or a single ounce more of his time than is required. Then he walks forward a few steps, ignoring the question and the rest of the room.

“What the bloody hell do you think you are doing?” James shouts as the fezzed fellow reaches to the table, his olive skin contacting the latest find. It’s an the old English dominance trick, Tyrion reasons, a good try but that doesn’t play well any more, not with Arabs at least.

Young James bridles and moves forward a step closer to the table. The other strangers do not like that however, not one bit. They raise and cock their guns in a rush and he stops. Bronn, not being a man to take a threat lying down tries to struggle for one of the rifles but is greeted with an elbow to the face. A hard elbow, much harder than necessary.

Bronn goes down quickly, his hands cupping his face and nose as they stream with blood. “Bleeding cunts,” he aches impotently into his hands. “You ‘orrible bleeding cunts.”

Following the crack of the strike James edges back so he is against the thin shack wall. The boss of the Arabs has the piece in his hands and studies it with dark, determined eyes.

“You haven’t paid for permission to dig at this site.” He finally says. He doesn’t put the find back on the table. He doesn’t even look at them, it has his full attention.

“That’s nonsense. We’ve filed a claim with the antiquities service for our stake.” Tyrion reaches slowly into a pouch at his side and withdraws a letter carefully to display. “Everything we’re doing here is perfectly legitimate in the eyes of the authorities.”

The man with the hat smiles and looks down to the dwarf. “Who mentioned the antiquities service?”

James’ brow furrows, his voice is quite and beyond worried. “What’s happening?”

Tyrion remains still. His voice darkens and he casts a stiff glare over the man with their ancient jar.

“I believe we’re being intimidated.”

The Arab turns and smiles. He gently places the piece down on the table. “Claim number five beyond the old city and the protection that is necessary to make sure your dig continues safely, £500, yes or no? £500, yes or no? - ” There’s no holding with the speed at which he talks. No time to process. It’s all a terrible rush.

“Wait - Wait a minute; I don’t even know what we have with us.”

The man looks to Tyrion’s younger companion who jitters. “What's his problem?”

“Ah, nothing. He’s fine. We’re all fine. Right…”, he searches for the name but it escapes him again, “...pal?”

He nods, if somewhat reluctantly with the gun pointed at him. “We’re good, Mr Green.”

“See. The boy’s fine.” He stresses the point slowly, with purpose. “How much money do you have with you?”

“Umm… two hundred, maybe.”

“And I have about 10. £210 is a good haul for a day’s work.”

Unyieldingly the mobster does not budge. “The price is 500. Take it or leave it.”

There’s a silence, a long ugly pause as Tyrion dithers. He waits for the words.

“I could get more maybe.” James finally provides, the words are as rushed as the sales pitch was. “At the hotel. But I need to know if you’re really sure about this. That you think this really could be it.” His voice cracks with the effort of what he is saying, Tyrion has learned enough about him to know that is almost everything the boy has in the world.

He looks into the kid’s bright eyes. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

The boy empties his pockets and his wallet of money and makes to leave for the hotel, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder, an olive hand. “You have ten minutes to get me the money.” And for the first time the man’s voice speaks with true malice rather than boredom. “If you tell anyone else I will make your friends into corpses and turn your dig-site into ash.”

The boy leaves, one of the Arab men watches him disappear through the buildings and further away until he is completely out of sight and out of earshot. Then a fist suddenly swings in to his stomach.

Bronn is to his feet and fuming, the young Arab is hit again and balls up on the ground, retching. Bronn knows just where and how hard to hit him to make it so. He grabs him by the hair and lifts his face up so that he can see him. The other Arab with the gun backs off warily.

Bronn’s rough English burr has an edge to it. “If you hit me like that again,” he warns, “I will cut your fucking face off.” Then he lets go and the man falls back into the dust.

Tyrion moves over to the jar on the table and grabs it. With his fingernail he digs and scrubs at what he noticed when he was brushing, just beneath a thin layer of the grime there is a price-tag. He peels the tag off and raises his stubby thumb with it into the air for everyone present to see. “This is the sort of thing that kills the entire job. Two weeks work could have been wasted. When did you start running with amateurs, Saleem?”

The man curses in Arabic and walks to his downed comrade, he slaps him around the head. “My sister’s sons, lazy dogs to the man. A thousand apologies, sahib.” Saleem brushes off his hand and smiles oily as he counts out the bills in his hand. “Do you think he will bring the rest?”

Tyrion takes what is his and Bronn’s from the share of the notes and pockets them, with what’s coming it’s a neat little sum altogether, though not enough. It’s never enough. “I know he will. He’s the type to. Damned fool that he is.”

The dwarf moves over to the end of the small room where he uncovers a cart filled to the brim with ancient jars, freshly made in a factory up the river. “Good news for us both then, eh?” Saleem notes.

“Not for the boy.” The jar is placed in the cart with the rattle of stone on stone. The old cart itself is pulled gently and the wheels squeak as it travels a few inches, they have been down these rough old roads for too long. The falcon head of Horus topping the jars stare into the darkness of space


	3. Tyrion - II

_**“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” - Matthew** _

 

** Two weeks later: **

The cramped streets of Alexandria stir with the comings and goings of market holders and the more adventurous tourists fresh from the planes and the boats. The smell of meat that permeates the air between the stalls is both suspicious and sweet, the calls of vendors echo off of the maze of mud and brick walls.

These old back alleys are too small for motor cars, too small even for the bicycle taxis and the rickshaws to manoeuvre as they do in the asphalt streets in the modern district of the city, where the hotels and the villas and the restaurants signal more of Paris than the gateway to Egypt and the Near-East beyond.

This is not that world: the world of coffee shops, of landscaped parks and of automobiles, but rather another: one of desperation and neglect that simmers and bubbles like a soup pot, all sorts of distinct people thrown together from around the globe to scrabble for the change in the pockets of fresh visitors. The two worlds run parallel with no discourse existing between them or between the different peoples who inhabit them.

 _The tourists are the only real thing they have in_ _common_ , Tyrion supposes as he sits and watches the thinner crowds around the edges of the marketplace.

The young pickpockets and the scammers are already running their trade with the more gullible looking visitors, the latter selling off Canaries that will die in less than a week. The worst looking of the former are bare-foot, dressed in little more than rags; they have copper wiry-skinny and are fast blurs on their feet.

The peddlers are similar to Tyrion but on a smaller scale, they’re selling fake nick-knacks. He is selling a dream, a theatrical slice of the Egyptian experience, one which has been sought by every foreigner since the tombs of kings and gods were first plundered.

His spot is good today, on an important artery that runs into the depths of the old city. Nearby is everything they need and all they have to do is sit and wait for more people and more money to filter in slowly with the afternoon tide like some already has.

His learned eyes scan the thin, long and ragged alleyway; study the unkempt haze of overhanging shacks and shanties through which he can barely spot the white marble of the towers and the mosques in the distance. His hands rub against his face and can feel the coarseness of beard and of dust. He had tried to wash his hands earlier but the earth of Alexandria has proven difficult to get from beneath his fingers, no matter what he does he just can’t seem to get his hands clean.

“Do you think Alexander would be proud of his namesake?” he asks as he swings himself from his bench. His stunted legs take that little bit longer to hit the ground.

His partner doesn’t move, he keeps to the shade and leans against a patterned stonework pillar. He spits and he grumbles and his hands push dark hair back and out of his face. He has the look of a man who has had a rough night. They both do. For it has been a lean week gone past.

“No. It’s a shithole.” He finally says grumpily.

The dwarf crosses the small alley and works his way behind a fairly shabby sign that reads _“Experience Ancient Egypt - Guided tours and digs.”_ , of course they both know what they are offering is nothing of the kind.

It feels wrong doing this con so soon. Feels wrong after what happened with the boy. But circumstances have forced them into the position again, forced them both to lie and cheat again.

Small hands pull out an orange from somewhere behind the sign and Tyrion begins to peel, but the red on the inside is too vivid, the cold flesh too much like the flesh of a dead man when he touches it.

He tosses the fruit to the side and sighs, his lips are parched as they are too often these past few days, but not for water. He mumbles but his full focus isn’t on the conversation: “We’ve seen worse.”

“Aye.” His companion says agitated: “Seen plenty of shitholes. Especially lately.” His hand goes up to rub at eyes which open as if they are afraid of the day light, afraid of the pains it could bring to a clouded mind. “Who cares what ancient cunt they’re named after?”

The small man’s face scrunches slightly in disbelief. “Bronn, you can’t call Alexander the Great a ‘cunt’.”

He doesn’t get a reply, just a smug “ _I just did_ ” style smile. It might have made Tyrion smile too, if not for his mood. “You wouldn’t want a city named after you?”

“Never mind all that… I’m English. We don’t do that like you Yanks do, or Alexander did. Didn’t he name a dozen towns after himself anyway?”

“And his horse.” Tyrion adds distantly, slightly surprised his partner knew that. He thinks about Alexander and how he had been remembered with as great a legacy, then he thinks about the boy again and who would remember him. Tyrion would, he was sure of it. Remember what he looked like when he had last saw him; remember how he had forgotten the boy’s real name. Tyrion’s sad eyes study the taller man who walks towards their stand.

“Sounds like a cunt…” He says as he folds their advertisement and begins packing things away.

“What are you doing?”

Bronn barely turns his head as he speaks.

“If you’re going to mope around and feel sorry for yourself all day - I’m going to need a drink.”


	4. Sansa - I

**_"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the_** ** _Lord_** ** _God had made. And he said unto the woman, 'Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'_** **_And the woman said unto the serpent, 'We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:_** **_But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.'" - Genesis_**

 

 

Her feet and her back hurt but she walks on. From the boat and into the offices where she was turned away. From the new city to the old, both where she had been given apologies and sympathy but no actual aid. From the river to the sea and then to the slums, where she still hasn’t found anything; not a single person willing to help her or a single sign to guide her way.

There are no open spaces here really; in the deepest depths of the old city. In her short time in the slums, it has oft been easier to find a donkey than to find sunlight. That makes her uneasy. For she knows that things oft lurk in the darkness and that slums and neglect are the realms of monsters. That knowledge serves as a reminder to her that she is no longer in England, of both the alienness and the vague similarity of her surroundings but not of her situation.

“What have you gotten yourself into, Sansa?” she sighs to herself as she bounces her knee and struggles for a direction. Her hands pull at the drab dress she has worn since she got off of the boat a day ago and she makes a big exhale, desperate to allow some of the air to touch the hot skin at her neck and her collar. Over her dress are layers of mismatched clothing which wrap around most of her body. Her face and her hands are the only visible parts of her and they both look pale and worn.

She blindly decides on a direction and walks a few steps further but almost stumbles as she hunches over slightly. The dirty duffle-bag on her back is heavy, but she desperately clings to it like it contains everything she has in the world. Bar those few things she could leave in England, it does, and they have been her sole companions on this long and lonely trip where the old year has passed into the new.

She steadies, but cannot bring herself to walk any further. She leans into a wall with her face against it just to take a moment reprieve and feel the cool of the shaded stone on her skin. She bends and rubs her feet through her boots, rubs her stomach through her clothes, then her palms turn into fists which she taps gently against the wall, impatiently, indecisively and with frustration. The Arabic writing on it might as well be the scrawling babble of a toddler for all the good she reads it, it’s so strange

Eventually, she breaths again, deeply and turns so that her back is against the wall.

Her thoughts are a bit of a blurry malaise. When was the last time she ate? When was the last time she drank? She can’t remember. Her eyes hurt as they watch a small sliver of afternoon light creep through a gap between the shanties around and overhead. It is almost pink tinged with orange.

 _Even the sun is different here;_ she thinks and wonders what the leaves in Winterfell would look like now in the first hints of spring, or how the smog and dreary bustle of London would swallow all the colour like some grey behemoth. She wonders if she will ever see them again, if Robb will.

Her feet carry her a little further and she follows the edge of the small crossroad to the only open building nearby. An Arabic sign hangs limply ahead and there is quiet laughter within. Once she cautiously steps near the threshold she can smell Turkish tobacco, like the kind her father used to smoke in his study or in his office. It smells like home, what was her home at least, and that wrenches at her heart. With that as her only marker and with the slow shift of the afternoon into the evening she inhales and finally she gives in and stops thinking about what Nanny Mordane would say to her if she were still alive.

The hallway is wide but narrows towards the end through a beaded entranceway, the slow-rattle of which signals her entrance. That, in turn, leads her down steps and into a below-the-surface room which is as wide as it is dimly lit. On the far side, there is a long bar and around the room there are small cubicles half-hidden by curtains and rolled carpets. Large Arab men and a few fairly well-dressed Europeans drink and smoke and talk in groups. Some of them talk so loudly that Sansa is almost afraid to enter fully. Some have only glanced up to the doorway to see who has entered, others keep their stares.

She makes her way across the room steadily, trying to hide the small limps she makes as she hobbles to the edge of the bar. Feeling the hot eyes following her she pulls her hood tighter to signal she wants no attention. It doesn’t seem to be working.

A white man with scars on his cheeks walks with a pitcher in hand, he stands on the row between  her and the bar and gives her a hungry look, she has to get close by him to pass and it isn’t until she has that he whispers something nasty that she pretends not to have heard.

An old bar-waiter comes drifting in from an angle and glances softly and with surprise at Sansa. He gives her a short, polite bob of his white thatch and dark lips open slightly into a smile as he says something in Arabic.

She gives him an awkward shrug and her cheeks rise in a slight flush.

“What will it be?” He asks, presumably again, the pacing of his English is slightly off. There is no rise and fall to the words but rather they come out in a low tumble.

She sits cautiously, careful to try to have most of her back facing the wall so that she can watch the rest of the room, the man with the scars has moved already to one of the booths but he still stares. Her bag goes to her knees and her hand moves over the outline of something inside for a moment, before it snakes into her pockets to rattle unsatisfyingly the few coins she has.  

She counts the coins out on the bar, very slowly, very sadly. Truthfully she doesn’t know how the Egyptian Pound works in comparison to the British one; she does know however that money wouldn’t cover a night’s stay anywhere. The whole journey has been terribly expensive, more so even than she had thought.

“What can I get with this?” she asks hopefully when she’s done.

The man shakes his head and reaches underneath the bar for a glass which he fills from the faucet. An olive coloured finger slides one of the dimmer looking coins away as he places the glass in front of her. “It is good thing water is free, asal.” He puts the coin into the till and closes it softly before he asks for a moment and disappears into a back kitchen.

She already has the cold water in her hand and in the hot mess she’s in the first taste of it feels like the greatest luxury she has ever experienced. Her fingers slide numbly on the condensation as she quickly drinks before they just manage to regain their grip in time. She feels the chill of it make little rivers over the sides of her mouth and her head gives an involuntary shake like the young boys at the school do when they come inside from lunch break on the hottest summer days.

Her hand goes to her lips when she’s done, delicately wiping the moisture away. The glass is back on the bar and she turns it this way and that to see the reflections and the light tumble around in it. She stops after a few moments when she catches small figures sat inside; sees some eyes that continue to watch her.

The bartender comes back with a wooden plate in his hands. He places it in front of her and watches diligently as she assesses the flat-bread and the savoury smelling spreads dolloped in little piles.

She grabs a nearby set of cutlery and daintily cuts a small amount of the bread away.

“No, no, no…” The old man says and mimes tearing and dipping the bread and then rubs his stomach and smiles like you would with a young child.

Sansa thinks for a moment about her hypocrisy with the boys before she drops the pretence: she's too hungry to care, and begins to eat like it. Her pale fingers tear messily at the bread and scoop the spreads up, funnelling the food into her mouth. The barman watches her reaction intently. “Is good?”

It’s spicy, but not overly so. She chews and tastes the tartness of the lemon against the coriander. She nods with approval and his smile widens before he disappears to a pair of customers further down the bar.

Just within her reach, by the coat hanger at the bar’s end there sits a newspaper.

She slides it closer to her and unfolds it to read the main headlines. Obviously, the recent death of the King is still the main talking point, it had hit her like a brick as soon as she had arrived in Egypt; another is the fallout after Stanley Baldwin’s government has won yet another election. She traces her mind and can’t remember whether it was a Liberal, a National Liberal, Liberal National, National Liberal and Conservative, or a Liberal and Conservative candidate who was supposed to be the best bet in the school’s seat. She continues to skim, so much time has passed, so many things have happened since she left Portsmouth. So many things could be happening here.

Some time passes by and she spends it eating and trying not to go to sleep, worrying about where she will be able to sleep eventually, if there is an embassy here that she might stay safely in for a time, if she could get somewhere to send a telegram home and beg someone to wire enough money to support her for a few weeks...  

 _Maybe I could sell it_ , she thinks, but the thought disappears as quickly as it came. _I can’t do that. It could be the last thing I have of his._

Eventually, someone says something quite loudly and Sansa grips her bag and turns slightly to see who spoke. The small shadowy groups of drinkers and smokers are for the most part either gone or going about their business. One group of Europeans half the room away are staring at her, making comments in Arabic about her.  She doesn’t know the specifics, but in every language, those types of comment sound the same. In front of them are leaning towers of empty glasses.

“Hello.” One of them slurs, holding the last letter like he’s in a choir. It is the scarred man from earlier.

Sansa looks at him and then looks away.

“Hey,” he says and shouts a word she doesn’t know.“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

The men laugh heartily amongst themselves at her reaction, or rather the lack of it. A pair of men from the other side of the room leave sensing the trouble that’s brewing. Sansa thinks about leaving too for a moment, but wagers that it’s safer in here than alone in the darkness of the slums.

Then the three of them rise out of their seats and stumble closer. The man who spoke first spins around a chair about ten feet away and sits on it backwards. He looks her up and down and Sansa grabs her bag tighter when she feels his eyes on it, so tightly that her knuckles hurt.

“Where are you going tonight?” He asks and pushes dark, pomaded hair from out of his face.

A second man sits at the nearest table. “Awww... look Osney, she’s shy.”

Osney speaks again then. **“** Maybe that’s why she’s alone. Is that why you’re alone?

The third man stops moving then and is close. Much closer than the others, much closer than Sansa is comfortable with. He leans in and whispers. “I’ll keep you company.”

Sansa is silent and turns her back on them.

“Hey...  we’re talking to you,” Osney says and stands now, moving close enough to turn her slightly with his hand.

Sansa gives him a hard stare but doesn’t say anything to him, just rolls her shoulder to throw his hand off of her.  This just makes him angrier.

The other men watch Osney’s failure and laugh. The scars on his cheeks flare bright and red.

The Arabic barman is back near her now; he turns beyond the bar and closes in on the younger men, speaking quickly and in Arabic. One of his hands goes to the shoulders of one of the men and he is floored quickly with a hard elbow to the face.

“I wasn’t talking to you, wog.” Osney scowls as he turns to the old man and kicks him in the ribs. He hits him again and again and the man groans roughly.

Sansa shoots to her feet quickly and grabs the man’s shoulder loosely. “Stop.” She begs, “Please. You’ll kill him.”

The drunk man stops and smiles savagely. His hand grabs hers and twists it back. His other goes to her hood which he tears down releasing a tumble of loosely braided auburn hair. “So she does speak.” He says to his friends.

Sansa grabs the first thing her other and can and with a hard thud like the sharp closing of a rather large book her bag comes into contact with Osney’s face. His eyes close and he’s knocked to the floor letting go of her.

She reels back and falls to the ground also, away from his grip. “I’m so sorry!” she squeals. But then wonders why she’s apologising. Her tormenters edge closer slightly until they aren’t focussed on her anymore.

Her eyes adjust from the tumble she’s taken when she notices the bag isn’t in her hand. Its contents have spilt onto the floor. Books, clothes, letters are all strewn across the carpet. What has everyone’s attention lies on one of her blouses and glimmers so wickedly in the candlelight that it almost appears to writhe.

Golden and dark, a two-headed snake with emerald-eyes wraps tightly around itself, its body marked with half a dozen glyphs that are so small that they look almost like wounds. A bracelet.

One of Osney's friends reaches forward when - BLAM - out of nowhere a gunshot erupts in the room and is closely followed by the sound of crumbling plaster. The young man jolts backwards, as do his friends.

"I've got too much of a hangover for this shit." A scruffy-looking Englishman says as he appears from out of a dark side booth, he pulls back the hammer on his pistol which is smoking and raised to the ceiling. By his side stands a young boy - _no_ -  _not a boy._

 


	5. Jon - I

**_“In the beginning there was only darkness everywhere - darkness and water. And the darkness gathered thick in places crowding together and then separating, crowding and separating until at last out of one of the places where the darkness had crowded there came forth a man.” - CHUHWUHT, SONG OF THE WORLD, PIMA CREATION STORY_ **

 

In a dark courtyard the men lay and lean, many too weary to even stand. Some are against the outside bars begging for water or food with hands outstretched, some are in thick groups nearer the centres. It’s a hot mess of twisted metal cages inside of a larger cage, all too small to fit the numbers of people enclosed. All bar one.

A bearded, weathered, young man sits with his back against the bars so that his face points towards the entrance of his cell. Bar the flickering of an outside torch the cell is near black. The only light that exists seeps through gaps in the roof where catwalks for the guards criss-cross above them.

In the darkness there are words and they make the man shrug awake. His dark hair droops down from his head and over his face. He pushes it away and there are dark patches and cuts on his skin. He allows his eyes to adjust to the low light, his ears to adjust to the sound.

The words continue, a huddled old Englishman with the jitters of a new inmate speaks them quietly into his folded hands: “…and he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth…”

“Save your strength until the next water break.” The young man says.  There’s a certain aspect to his accent that makes him hard to place. A peculiar mixture of inflection and pacing that could throw anyone off. Between two worlds. “Meekness will get you nothing in here.”

The Englishman is sobbing now. Loudly. He looks helpless, pitiful. “There’s been a mistake. I’m innocent. I’m not supposed to be in here!”

There’s small deep laughter from one of the cells on the far side of the courtyard, laughter that ends almost as quickly as it begins. The young stranger knows who it is as soon as it starts and he can already envision the man that it comes from.

The wicked metal around them shifts slightly under somebody’s weight and above them a guard shouts for silence in Arabic. But the Englishman does not stop. That will not bode well for either of them.

The younger man crawls over to him and shakes him urgently by his moss coloured rags, the same kind they all wear. “Hey hey hey! Shhh.”

“I didn’t do it.” He says, only slightly quieter. “I didn’t- “

The older man tries to speak again only to be cut off as a dirty hand covers his mouth. He struggles against it.

“Listen. Listen! I don’t care what you did or didn’t do.” The stranger now pinning him down says deliberately.  “But if you don’t want to get your head kicked in with standard issue Egyptian boots you need to shut up now.” His words are as sympathetic as he can make them.

The man sniffs, sobs again once and then finally the audible wailing ends. He crosses his arms and pulls his knees up into his chest to bury his cries as he shakes. The stranger can do nothing but watch him for a few hours more. Watch him and feel hot eyes on their cell from the usual places.

 

* * *

 

They’re shackled now. The chains shake and scrape and jangle as their line moves by the side of the gruel hall. They’re in a different part of the prison, it’s more open, sky is visible through the crisscross of chain above. It hurts their eyes to see it.

The two men from earlier line up for their measly share. The older man first, and then the younger. Thin watery grey with small amounts of pasty nutrition is dribbled into their wooden bowls.

The first of them sighs in disgust and begins to move with the flow of people until he stops.

“They’re watching us” he says.

They are. Small groups dotted around stare towards them. The older man looks down and away from their gazes. He'd rather not know, rather not confront the fact.

The younger man does not dip his head. “They never stopped.”

“They don’t like the English?”

“Technically I’m not English.”

“Scot?”

The younger man does not respond.

“Irish then? I don’t think they’re nuanced enough to make the distinction.” He steps along and few eyes follow him as he makes some small distance from his cell mate. “They don’t seem to like you in particular.”

The younger man takes his food and walks on towards an empty table, the kind that is screwed into the ground. The Englishman follows, more because he doesn’t want to be alone in here than anything else.

The plates hit the table and the younger man pushes the hair from his face, his hands can only go so far away from each other on account of the chains. The tanned skin is dirty and bruised. He lifts the bowl to his mouth and has a small taste.

The older man looks down into his own food but cannot bring himself to try it. He studies the grains and can almost swear he sees one of them move.

He pauses when a shadow appears over him. The shadow does not move.

The Englishman turns and then he has to look up and up to see the angry face of one of the largest men he has ever seen before. One of his eyes is white and glassy looking, his coppery skin glints with sweat. He is flanked by three men only slightly smaller.

“Leave.” The man says. His voice is a deep boom.

The Englishman hesitates for a moment. He looks across the table to his companion and watches him nod gently. A signal to do what he says.

The Englishman makes his way from the table and the large prisoner sits down in his place. Across from him the Irishman finishes his food, seemingly without a care.

The man speaks again. His English is less broken than a lot of the other prisoners.

“We’re going to keep coming for you until you are dead. You know this, Mr. Snow?”

Snow does not move. As still as his namesake is upon the ground.

The Arab stands and walks clockwise around the table. “How do you sleep at night?”  He asks. He knocks the Irishman’s plate from the table and it clatters to the floor with a hollow wooden sound. “Do you see their faces?”

Snow’s head turns away. Slightly. Overly reserved like someone trying to hold themselves back.

“Monster. Butcher!” The man hisses loudly. Most of the prisoners are paying attention now. The guards too.

Snow’s jaw tightens, but he does not look directly at the man towering above him. “I know what I am.” Is all he says before he stands and makes to move away from the situation.

That’s when his wrist is grabbed.

He finally turns and the two of them stare down for a silent moment before the larger man opens his free hand to let something dangle. It’s an old, cheap looking bit of metal on a thin leather strap. “Such a pretty little thing.” He taunts, his fogged eye almost gleaming with malice.

Snow pats down his chest in disbelief and then rushes to grab at the item only to get a swift punch to the head that makes him go down. Hard.

His adversary laughs with his friends. They watch as the younger man begins to stumble to his feet.

The enormous man swings again- but almost from nowhere his quarry CATCHES his fist. He kicks his opponent straight in the knee and there is a cracking sound not dissimilar to an ax in a tree.  The man goes down. Another boot hits his face followed by a fist as the man finally goes limp.

He desperately peels the piece from the barely conscious man’s huge hand and grips onto it as tightly as someone would embrace an old friend.

The downed man’s three companions hesitate for a moment before they try and rush him but Snow holds them off while taking a few firm hits. He fights hard, flipping one prisoner into another, hitting the other in the neck with one of the wooden bowls.  

Eventually the three overpower him, and he kicks and drags and struggles until they are all on the dusty floor in a desperate clash that is only interrupted by a thundering crash. Gunfire.

The filthy ground around them dances as the shots echo in the prison. Each man, even the most sore, the most broken, put their hands behind their heads as the Guards move to break everyone up. They are cavalier in the use of their truncheons and most of the men take some savage hits. Snow takes a few more than the rest and his green rags are almost torn from him as a group of guards drag him from the hall.

His feet go over wood and then concrete as he is thrown into a cell darker and smaller even than his last. The guards stay there for a few minutes more to ensure that he will learn his lesson.

His grip on the object does not loosen even an inch while he takes the kicking.

**Author's Note:**

> Just playing around with the story to get it out of my head. Please leave feedback. x


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